France 35-16 Scotland: Three things we learned
Gregor Brown stands upThe second-row had a positive impact off the bench in nearly every game he appeared in, but Saturday was his first Six Nations start, against the best team in the competition. He was excellent.He was the big breakout player of the campaign for Scotland - powerful, dynamic, skilful and still very young at just 23. Once Scott Cummings and Max Williamson reappear after injury then the options in the second-row are going to look really positive.Scotland continue to suffer bad callsWe don't want to whinge, but some big calls went against Scotland. The England try that was given despite zero evidence that the ball was down. The late, late Finn Russell conversion incorrectly moved closer to a tougher spot, closer to the touchline, the yellow card given to Peato Mauvaka on Saturday night which should have been a red. You could easily argue that the yellow given to Jamie Richie early on was harsh.For fear of coming across as sore losers, Scotland really can't go public with their gripes but they're coming out on the wrong side of these decisions quite a lot. Maybe a private summit with World Rugby might be in order.There's a host of other reasons why Scotland only won twice. Their capacity to fall asleep in games is still a concern, albeit it didn't happen in a courageous performance in Paris. Handling errors cost them in key moments. A lack of forward heft was an issue.Scotland are not genuine contendersNo amount of guff about the golden generation is going to deflect from the fact that Scotland are not good enough to win a championship. France are miles ahead in squad depth and power. England are improving and have vast amounts of players to pick from. Ireland are now firmly in transition but they're still better than Scotland, as, er, 11 wins in a row suggests.Scotland are struggling badly for front-row forwards. There's precious little depth there and it's ruinous when they go up against the big guns who can bring quality players on to the pitch for the last 30 minutes.That said, Gregor Townsend did not have much luck with injuries. The only hope Scotland have of making it to a final weekend with even a sliver of hope of a title win is if they avoid injuries to all of their key men. Clearly, they didn't this time.Sione Tuipulotu, Cummings, Williamson, Josh Bayliss and Andy Onyeama-Christie didn't kick a ball. Their return can't come quickly enough.The flipside of that is the return of Ritchie to his very best form. He had a terrific tournament and has played his way into the Lions conversation.
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